Victims of War
by lumos maximum
Summary: They were seven men who became seven sinners, May the third, when the number of casualties were still a hazy number. In the spill of blood from the Second War, who could blame them? . . . COMPLETE
1. Gluttony, Neville Longbottom, May 3

**SWEDISHA/N:** Okay, I couldn't keep my fingers from this so I'm attempting a character I never dared to. . . For The Sharmand Challenge or Day by Day challenge as I will call it held by Sinistra Black over at HPFC! The challenge was **the seven deathly sins**. As usual, I do not own, as usual I hope that you enjoy. . .

_P.S. If spotted and seen, do correct my English. I'd be delighted_.

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**Victims of War** (or **May the Third**)  
_By: Lumos Maximum_

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"It's sinful not to be grateful when the opportunity of life has been given to you after all casualties, death and tragedies that have been poisoning every vital part of life as we know it. Celebrate life because that is a gift given to you by those who guarded your interests. I believe that there is only one phrase you should use today and that phrase is thank you."_**

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Gluttony

It's over, Neville reasoned as he tied his tie for the third time this elevator ride. He wanted to look sharp for the first time that his parents would see and remember him. After all, the war was over and she, that evil witch who was the reason of this, was dead. Evilness was demolished from the face of this earth and nowhere to be seen and surely that would make the illness wear off and make them remember who he is again. . .

The elevator reached the top floor and casually, without reporting his presence, he wondered down the small corridor to their private room. Some nurses gave him a weak smile while others patted his back before they had to run down the hall to take care of the many people on the more urgent floors. This floor was where the long-termers stayed, hence the cosyness and the unfitting familiarity in the otherwise sterile environment. These patients were the doomed one, he overheard the nurses say many times during their coffee break when he was a child, right before they padded him on the head, gave him as many cookies that he liked and told him that what they said before about dooms had one exception and that was his parents.

"Hey mum, hey dad," Neville greeted when he opened the red door that led into his parent's hospital room. The little room smelled like his parents and was filled with all the drawings he made for them as gifts since he knew how to work a pen. Shamefully he plastered the newest to the addition on the wall, a picture of him and them in the memorial later this night with linked hands and sad but hopeful faces.

When he turned to explain his actions he saw his father meet his gaze with curious eyes that were filled with pride. He knew that his father remembered him; he must've read the papers, Neville reasoned, when he saw the headline "HEROES OF THE WAR" on the Daily Prophet next to his father's bed. The blush started to creep out, his father might've expected Harry Potter to be his son but here he was – nothing like the hero – but ordinary enough to look for a dad and need one too.

"Oh – you might've thought that your son was Potter," Neville started and watched his father's curious eyes break contact with his and turn bored. Ashamed he stared at his hands instead.

"We'll he's great and all, and I do know him so I could introduce you one day," Neville said in a hurry so that his dad wouldn't think less of him. "But I am your son. See, we have the same hair and nose."

"Dad?" Neville called when his father didn't reply. When he did dare to look up he saw his father observe his shoes. It was always the shoes. . .

A feeling of despair consumed Neville. He had wished to be nothing more than heard and remembered for all the seventeen birthday cakes his grandmother baked him and for all the seventeen birthday cakes he singlehanded baked and consumed to make the wishing accuracy increase. He believed in birthday wishes, shooting stars and lucky coins and amulets but they never worked, life never worked.

"After everything, the war is over and this – It's not fair," Neville burst out loud, much to his own chock when he saw the pain in his father's unknowing face.

"Tell me my name," Neville demanded now and shifted his attention towards his mother who always seemed to be the one closest to know who he really was. Her dark eyes, just like his, were observing the anger he now showered them in with dim eyes. She was not there, not really, and that hurt more than the moment of disappointment he thought he spotted in his fathers eyes. Instead of showing any kind of emotion she stretched out her hand to comfort her son. In her hand laid a neon-pink, bubblegum wrapper with the care only treasures and children should be handled in and as the greatest gift on earth she presented him the wrapper.

He grabbed the wrapper, turned around and threw it in the bin, promising himself to never believe in anything this foolish again. It was with tears that he left the room and let his legs take him to the familiar nurse's room where they had their coffee breaks. He would spend hours there, being padded on the head, eating cookie after cookie until the feeling of throwing them up came and being told that there was one exception in this world and this part of the hospital and that was his parents.

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**Q:** Should I write the six other sins for Victims of War(May the Third)? ... You know what, don't answer that, I will so you'll know who said the quote above.  
_Oh, and thanks for reading!_


	2. Envy, Harry Potter, May 3

**Hey,** I'm looking for a BETA reader that is up for reading some Hurt/Comfort,  
various Romance pieces and the occasional slash every now and then,  
weaknesses are grammar and use of English so  
_if you're up for it and have time for it please send me a message _  
or comment on this piece and I will write you back.

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Envy  
_[Desiring another person's __superior quality, achievement, or possession__]_

Waking up in the middle of the day made Harry Potter feel in need of even more sleep, if he could he would let sleep take him back to peace again but he knew that he had things to take care of and losses to count. . . His eyes felt heavy, his limbs numb when they weren't throbbing with pain and he felt all alone all the sudden. In the small, shattered window in front of him he saw the rays of sun gleaming tauntingly in the blur Gryffindor Dorm, reminding him that the tomorrow he fought for was here today.

Habitually he looked for his glasses with his hand and grabbed them carefully. When his sight turned from a blur to sharpness he gazed over the room. Dean and Neville had left almost immediately, Harry remembered, and Seamus wasn't allowed to stay. That only left Ron but looking at his right, expecting to see the loyal redhead snoring loudly gave his stomach an uncomfortable turn. The bed was empty, tidy made even, and there were no traces of him left.

Quickly he got dressed and tried to smooth out his hair without any results. He chose the blue knitted sweater with a yellow 'H' across the chest and a pair of jeans, knowing very well that the sweater was going to make the sweat drip from his back but wearing it gave him a different kind of warmth than the sunny may day ever could. When realizing that he had been stalling too much he went out the door toward the spiral stairs, leaving his four poster bed in the same kind of mess that his hair was.

Four steps down the stairs Harry froze, not capable to take another step down. He found Ron, curled into a couch with a tormented and pale face in profile. Ron looked like he felt but on Ron's left sat Percy, quickly shoving up his glasses further up his nose before wrapping his arm around Ron's shoulder. A wave of emotion rushed through Harry, he never liked Percy, not really, but seeing him putting his arm around Ron like that made something bubble inside. He wanted that, Percys arm around him with his comforting words and dry sobs in his ear, and he was the one who truly deserved it. He was the one who had gone through the battle of history and he was the one who stood there with his limbs throbbing and his head hurting after meeting death and returning, he reminded himself with a mix of horror and accomplishment in his mind. _That should've been me_, Harry thought outraged and glared at Ron, but instead he was the one spying alone on the top of the stairs without anybody's arms wrapped around him.

"Yeah – thanks," he heard Ron mumble, undervaluing whatever Percy told him. "It's okay, Percy," Ron assured Percy although it was _everything_ but okay and arrogantly lifted Percy's arm up from his shoulders to throw in some flaming powder into the sparking fire.

A new wave of a dark emotion towards Ron hit Harry. Why Ron he couldn't describe but Harry knew that it felt like when he was a child and Dudley got presents he never cared much for on his birthday when he only got dishes to do or when Dudley got too many kisses for getting an average grade in math when his well earned scores got him a scolding. . .

With a sharp turn Harry intended to flee up the stairs and hide in the safety of the Gryffindor Dorm where Ron could come and find him if he cared enough to look but his legs couldn't carry him up and he felt his foot hit the step above a little too hard and loudly enough to be spotted.

"Oh, you're finally awake," Molly said and looked up to meet his eyes that started to tear up from the addition of pain. "We wondered how long you'd take."

The almost whole red headed family glanced up to see him stand there in their sweater as an imposter. He didn't fit like Ron did because he wasn't freckly or tall or even worthy enough to cry when he was the reason all of _them_ got killed.

"I'm sorry – I didn't mean to interrupt –," Harry started but interrupted himself when he realized that it was exactly what he meant to do. He came to interrupt them with loud bangs and blue knitted sweaters so they would've accepted him but most importantly he came looking for Ron because despite how much he envied Ron, he always found his way when he looked for his home and somehow Harry had always failed.

"Harry," Ron said with blood red eyes matching his hair. There was something in his voice that sounded relieved or happy to see him there and for that Harry would always thank Ron. "You should be with family during these things, you know," Ron said as a fact and a unanimous sound of murmurs and nods where shared among the redheads. "Hurry down."

Without further exchange of words Harry went down the steps between him and Rons family and was pulled into a hug by Molly who told him repeatedly that he was brave, courageous and one of her many heroic boys. Shamefully he realized that Ron gladly shared his family with him, the most precious gift of all the riches Ron had that he didn't, and whatever he did to thank him could never be enough. However, Molly kissing every inch of his cheek as she praised him wasn't enough to fill out the absence of his own family and that would always be the reason that the dark thoughts of envy would sicken Harry's otherwise pure mind. That, and the knowledge of knowing that Ron, being the luckiest boy alive, rarely appreciated or knew how truly lucky he really was.

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_In the end, __it's__ what the war did them that __cause__ the sin to __poison__ them...__  
Thanks for reading!_


	3. Sloth, Dennis Creevy, May 3

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Special thanks to **Darkness Approaches** for BETA-reading this piece!

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Sloth   
_[neglect of inner capacity]_

Dennis Creevy hated to read; everything from schoolbooks to pamphlets were a pain he had to endure. The words rarely stood still or created a sentence like they should or more accurately, like he was taught that they should. Instead the 'O's' and the 'L's' conspired against him and created a hell when he tried to make something out of them. At first, he had suffered but had tried despite feeling different and some days he managed with the help of his brother but when his brother's letter arrived that dreaded summer day he gave up trying. Dad was angry at himself but it might as well been at him, teachers were plain mad about the whole thing and the endless explanations were an agony to listen to. Until this day he couldn't realize why it was that they couldn't see that there was no logic in an 'A' following anything else than a 'B'.

"I understand that you don't see it," his brother had assured him once when he was eleven but he had been so angry with him that he refused to believe him. "I couldn't see it too at first but I had to teach myself you know, at Hogwarts."

"You – you don't know a thing, I don't know a thing either!" Dennis had insisted and pounded on the soft wooden floor where they sat. The soil had been damp when they got seated there in the morning but dried up during the endless hours they spent. The sun burned their skin into a red shade that stung and hurt the next day and he remembered feeling thirsty and angry but his brother had insisted on them sitting there with one of his school books until he saw the name written on the book.

"It starts with and C, that you know, and follows with an O and two L's. That together is. . ." his brother has pushed, ignoring his darting attention.

"You went away to do magic and you came back without anything to solve this," Dennis remembered himself yell. "You came back with pictures that move and candy frogs that jump. They are really cool but it doesn't help."

"Try to see it, you're smart and gifted," his brother had insisted." I know that you can if you try, but you rarely try."

"DON'T YOU GET IT? I DON'T SEE IT, I DON'T UNDERSTAND AND I AM NOT SMART OR MAGICAL," he had bellowed, enraged before he headed up to his room and slammed their shared bedroom door so hard that it had broken. That night he remembers tearing all the pages in all the books in the room to avoid reading them. Everything from the children's tales of heroes on horses to the thick books that were his brother's school supply were victims of his rage. He had hated how his brother had left for greater things and how he was left here without anybody who was as bad, lazy and dreamy as he was.

When a letter came the following morning he opened it in silence, the name 'Dennis' and the familiarity of the letter was what had caught his eye. He asked his father to read it for him but he declined, saying that the poisonous green was too bright for him to see the words written. The letter was neglected for days, Dennis was too ashamed to ask his brother and too lazy to try to solve the mystery of letters by himself. It was, however, the words that his brother had spoken that haunted him. "I know that you can if you try, but you rarely try," he had said and he had been right.

One day, a chilly July morning he remembered it as, he had decided to flee to the only place he knew could help him every day until he understood what the message was in the letter. It took the whole of July to grasp the ABC's but one extraordinary August morning in the dusty library Dennis finally saw it, Welcome to Hogwarts, it said and that was enough for him to jump on his bicycle and take the quickest route home.  
On the front porch had his brother been laying, not saying a word but glancing up from a book that he had patched back up again with tape and glue. The weak smile his brother had shot at him was enough for him to apologize.

"I'm sorry I didn't try when you knew I could," he had said and dropped his bicycle to run towards his brother. He remembered that he stopped in the middle of his run when he realized that he was magical. . . and smart. . . and the only thing that it took for him to realize this was to actually do something that took effort. "I've been reading, you know, not much but a few things," he murmured and dug up the well pocketed letter with the poisonous green writing.

With big eyes his brother had observed the letter in his hand. "I've always known," his brother had said, too wise for a thirteen year old, and stood up to meet him halfway. "Now, promise me to never stop reading when we go to Hogwarts together. I'll help you when it gets hard though," he added, and hugged him tightly on the front porch where the soil was once again damp but the sun still burned their already fair skin.

Despite his brothers constant encouragement he didn't read after that, not much anyways, because he was better at flying broomsticks, planting herbs, taking care of the magical creatures and dueling but at times when he was forced to read he felt like it was too much effort to put in when the letters formed words so slowly. Today however, he held a paper voluntarily because not reading a paper today would be lunacy. "HEROES OF THE WAR" was as far as he had managed to come on the headline but it was enough for him to feel the tears of pride burn behind his eyelids. His brother would be in there in the sea of words, somewhere. (lunatic is what you call someone, like a name. Lunacy is still a noun, but it's a word to describe actions that are crazy)

He scanned through the paper where the names of surviving heroes were listed. He couldn't see his brother's name written anywhere there, how hard he even tried. He was here somewhere, Dennis repeated silently to himself, because his brother had never given up fighting and had always been a survivor despite the struggles he faced. But it was under a head line where the word "Casualties" were written that he saw something that looked like the name he was looking for. It couldn't be his name because it was the wrong list, he reasoned, it was just the 'O's' and 'L's'' that played tricks on him again and the only one who could explain those kind of mysteries was his unbeatable and much alive brother Collin.

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A/N: I dunno about this installment of the sin but it made a nice plot discussing Dyslexia, a difficulty I highly respect people of putting effort in conquering.. do review :)


	4. Warth, George Weasley, May 3

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**Not BETA-read (yet!) but as soon as I wrote it I could not keep my fingers from uploading it so… I hope you enjoy this piece with its flaws and I'll promise on having the next piece BETA'ed. Giving you a mindtwister that I would be (more than) happy if you took your time to review. enjoy!  
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Wrath  
_[an emotion that is more commonly described as anger]_

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George Weasley had been preparing for almost three hours in the bathroom when he got dressed for the memorial. Fred stood straight in front of him, taunting his shoulder long hair that covered his ears, his vainness and the freckly bottom he accused him for having.

"You look rubbish," Fred told him as a summary of the three hours taunting. "You always look rubbish in those funeral robes."

"Well, you aren't a looker yourself," George replied, smiling vaguely as he dusted off his shoulders with Fred copying his every move. "Never have been."

"Well that's quite of an insult coming from a guy with one ear – ," Fred said and George glanced up from his reparative dusting of his shoulder to meet Fred eyes that were glimpsing mischievously with the exact color, shape and size. "Hey George – I don't feel like going to this thing," he said after the long hours of preparing for the memorial.

"Well, Dad is suggesting that we all go – besides, Mum is forcing us too," George mumbled and bit the corner of his lower lip. "Says we have to honor the fallen heroes before we count our own losses."

"But people will not laugh or tell jokes – they'll cry," Fred said, biting the corner of his own lower lip. "And there will be people looking at us, thinking that we should look strong and collected and heroic and all. I don't feel heroic."

"Me neither, not for a second," George mumbled and broke his eye contact with Fred to fumble with his tie. "I am mostly tired."

"Well, I am off to better places, you go – ," Fred stated and when George looked up to give his brother the meaning eyes he saw Fred almost beating him to it.

"You're staying with me," George replied shortly and wrinkled his right eyebrow only to be copied by Fred.

"No," Fred said, refusing to budge down. "I don't want to sit there and say my goodbyes."

"But you have to say goodbye!" George roared, feeling his heart race and his blood rush quicker. He had never been this angry at Fred who looked wickedly at him in his anger. Fred too looked like the blood was rushing through every vein in his body and his fists were clenching in the same way that his own did. No wonder their mother could not tell them apart.

"I'll find a way to get out of this instead," Fred whined. "I don't want to go – ,"

"Then why don't you stay?" George yelled and after that there was nothing more than a rush through his body that made him feel intoxicated by fury. "You always do this Fred, you plan leave without telling me where and it upsets me – ," George said and aimed to punch Freds head. He slung back and saw Fred prepare himself in the same way and then aimed on the nose. With an alarmed face when realizing what he was about to do he and that he could not stop, he hit him right on the nose. For a split second George remembered nothing more than darkness and a confusing rage towards everything Fred put him through. It was with a blinding pain that George realized that hitting Fred felt like splits of thick glass digging into the fair skin that covered the knuckles.

"George?" Charlies voice called from the other side of the bathroom door that they had locked themselves in. "Who are you talking too?"

Instead of replying to Charlie's questioning George took a minute to examine his throbbing hand. The blood made the sink between him and Fred turn red and pieces of broken glass, the same one the pieces of glass that dug themselves deep into the skin of George, fell down the sink and became smaller pieces of hurtful glass.

Looking up he realized that the bathroom mirror was broken.

"You're not really here, are you?" George said, staring at Fred whose face was broken and twisted in the different pieces that the mirror was in now. He opened his mouth, only to see Fred do the same and he raised his bloody hand in front of the mirror, realizing that the hand that Fred lifted up was as bloody as his own.

"Stop playing games, Fred –," George below enraged but there was nothing more than the eyes of a madman meeting his own from the broken mirror and a digging wish that it was just Fred, playing games.

"You're not really here, are you?" he repeated and closed up, only to be copied by Fred. He hated how Fred always played games when he was trying to be serious, like today when he prepared to mourn all the others losses but insensitive as Fred had been he had said "sod it – you didn't lose anything, we're all intact," and proceeded in copying every movement and gesture he had done these past three hours. Before Fred could reply to the question Charlie broke in through the door with his wand raised and his eyes widen.

"George!" Charlie burst out and started to heal his throbbing hand with Dittany from the cabinet. When the feeling of healing spread through George's hand some pieces of him felt okay again.

"Fred - ," George started and backed away from Charlie's healing, feeling unworthy too feel good again. "He – I think – He was here and I hit him and his hand is bleeding too. You have to heal his hand too."

"George," Charlie said and his voice sounded older than George ever heard him. "He. . . died."

"He's not really here, is he?" George murmured during a spit second where reality felt graspable and felt his legs bend underneath him until he was a mess on the bathroom floor. He bordered between different realities, unable to understand which one was the true one or which one he simply desired. In the mix of grief that he couldn't handle and the raging storm inside when he felt broken was Fred – sometimes there as clear as daylight with every feature recognizable and sometimes in an obscure mix of paleness and blood.

"I – he is not – you're the one bleeding," Charlie who did not believe in anything grander than dragons replied vaguely. Unable to an answer him with anything useful he added, "It's time to go," and picked him up from the floor.

"No. No. He was here," George insisted. "Where is he?" George demanded in a fury when Charlie started to lead them out of the bathroom. He was not gone, his other half, he could not have been gone because there were no answers, reasons or explanations for Fred disappearing and he would never leave without him, now would he? Instead of understanding the meaning behind Charlies words he felt the transmission of clinker floor turning into wooden floor under his feet and he felt painful sanity turn into blissful insanity again.

"I'm always here, I'm just hiding – that's all," Fred answered in a whisper in his ear and although Charlie never saw it George knew that the redhead in the broken mirror waved him off with a bloody hand and a triumphant smirk.

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	5. Lust, Teddy Lupin, May 3

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**SWEDISHA/N:** Nothing big! My "fanfic writing" time is put on something else right now, expect a release of _something_ else as soon as this piece is done! Nevertheless, this is beautifully sad. Enjoy. oh, and - well, studying psychology I have to say that Freud's theory that boys are in love with their mothers. . . well, it sounds quite accurate so presenting to you –

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Lust  
(but not in that twisted way)  
_[the need of flesh]_

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Teddy Lupin would always be remembered as a quiet child, safe and sound in his crib. People shy, they would call him, poor thing others would say but the truth was that baby Teddy was quiet because the calls for rough, brown straws of hair to tickle his nose and bright pink to fascinate him was in vain.

He loved whenever he was lifted up by a couple of hands that seemed scared of breaking him by the man who smelled like home. The man, usually careful and calm, had been growling some words to those outside his crib that evening when he left. The man with the brown strays of hair that were rough against his cheek was sad, he had known, and he felt sad too because he wanted that man to play with him instead of being sad. So he told him and the man, aware of his plead, had lifted him up and kissed him on the cheek, comforting him by singing a song that made his eyes go heavy and then the man left.

It was okay though, because the woman stayed and it was her and her closeness that he truly desired. She, who had food, smooth skin and kisses and hugs that never tickled or felt rough. He loved that woman, she always lifted him up carefully but her hands were firm once she held him, carefully sheltering from the things around that he never cared about when she was near. She would always do faces to make him smile but he was content just watching her eyes, bright and beautiful and gazing at him in a way that made him feel warm and safe. He always anticipated the moments when the woman would lift him up and hold him closely to her beating heart while she rocked him to sleep so that night, the same night that the man left, she lifted him up to kiss his temple and that made him feel joyous. Tenderly he felt her lips brush against his forehead and on his cheek while she said words to him that he didn't understand. He gave her an explaining gurgle as a reply – telling her that the words were beautiful, simply because her voice was.

She had placed him in the crib to sleep after that like she always did but when he woke up in the middle of the night, scared, she was not there and how loudly he even called she did not answer. As a last resort he called for the man with the rough hair but even he, with his scared hands and rough hugs, did not reply. Instead a familiar but not too familiar woman lifted him up from the darkness; bosom too wide, hands wrinkly, smell elderly and arms to weak to rock him to sleep. Neither did she lift him up towards the sky like the man did to calm him down, nor did she get the song right and she held no food or bright and beautiful eyes. Her voice was sleepy, tired and he did not like that much so he cried through the whole night, morning and afternoon despite anything the wrong woman did for him.

The evening came and the voices were many in the place that the wrong woman had taken him to but his cries were louder than any sound there. When all the voices stopped in a silence for a time he knew that he would have been sleeping in the warmth of the woman's clutching arms to the song that the man would sing for him if things were as they should be. . .

His cries died out that day, May the third, during the memorial of the fallen heroes because silently the infant knew that his cries after the man and the woman would never be answered again.

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	6. Pride, Draco Malfoy, May 3

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**SWEDISHA/N:** The Last one before the finale..

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Pride_  
[a high sense of one's personal status]_

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Draco Malfoy was far from intact from the war. Despite that his pretty face, paler than usual, had small traces of aging he didn't have any scars showed that he fought the battle of his life among the many casualties. The only scars that Draco bore were a small, straight scar too close to his heart from a hex from a betraying Death Eater and the big trademark scull on his arm that would become a permanent reminder that he once belonged to that betraying pack. Physically he looked like one of the survivors who wandered the streets, chanting in joy over the Dark Lords fall. Yes, physically he could join them, although his face was hated and his intentions would be questioned, because he was alive but mentally however he was _almost_ dead.

He had found living surreal to an extent that he had to check if he was in fact taking breaths, having heartbeats and the regular dreams of a too old man falling from Hogwarts highest tower. . . While drifting off to a place where his nightmares and fears took over his mind he felt the beats slowing down and it was only then that he questioned his life. He had lost much in the war that was literally his whole life only a couple of days ago. First of all was Crabbe – and that hurt – but above that was his integrity. A clipping that he cut out from the morning's issue of the Daily Prophet entitled "THE HEROES OF THE WAR" had more than heroes listed and his name in cursive among the villains was enough as a proof. He had lost his life purpose too; he had proven to be nothing more than a side effect of something grander throughout his pathetic life. He was barely the shadow that the Golden Boy had to cast, the brat that gloated over a bunch of pathetic and stupid choices that brought him to where he was now and he was a bad example of a Death Eater.

The ladder, however, was something he wasn't cursing at nights when he was a pitch-black sky watching a scene of rotten Death Eaters being burned alive.

The night was dawning outside, the dust had fallen to the ground and the ruins of Hogwarts were slowly being charmed together. He took a second to listen to the sounds of his parents wondering in the echoing mansion. He had seen the headlines in the Evening Prophet alright, while the heroes were being gathered in some memorial for the dead the villains were trapped like animals in a corner of their homes and dragged to Azkaban. He did not ponder much about that though, knowing that they had allied in the eleventh hour, joining the light and was therefore left with nothing else than hatred, shame and nightmares nobody minded them having. But he could not help fearing that the eleventh hour was not enough. . .

It was in the eleventh hour that he realized that he would never be enough.

"DRACO," his mother yelled, an earsplitting cry that made him jump off from his pondering in bed and run down the stairs towards the source of the sound. It had to be one of her nightmares, in which he died repeatedly in a flash of green and he wanted to make sure to show her that he was there.

"Mum?" Draco burst as he left his bedroom and ran down the stairs. When he reached the hallway he placed one of his warm hands on his mother's cold shoulder. Both her hands were covering her mouth and her eyes were widening in absolute shock.

"I – I think – They're here," she whispered and pointed a long finger towards the second hallway that lead to the entry.

Draco left her to enter the hallway, only to face one of those nightmares that haunted him. Nothing could be grimmer than the look of seeing his father cornered up by the Aurors with his wand ready and his mind sharpened to a point that it was _too_ tense.

"Son," he heard his father plead before being eyed in a way that would haunt him for many years. "Potter," his father said before he got a wand against his throat.

Draco watched his father's twisted face with that needing plead that did not fit the strong figure he was raised up become. A Malfoy did not look like a wounded hippogriff facing a lumos light, a Malfoy was a prideful man who carried himself with elegance, sharp comments and vicious smirks that chilled bodies across England. Draco knew that his father, the majestic man with the strong features, would never ask him what he _thought_ he asked. He would never beg him to murder the only trace of pride left in the family name by asking Potter to. . . to save them.

"Potter what, father?" Draco asked, just to confirm that it was not the weak thought that he had in his head that his father implied.

There was a pause, in which Draco watched his father contemplating the worth in his next words. Draco saw the struggle of a man, far too old to be broken, cracking under pressure and the tension was so thick that the sharpest of knives could not cut it or cut them to spare them the pain that would follow with _that_ feeling.

Defeat.

"Talk to Potter," his father mumbled. "Seek out his aid," he added only confirming the vague thought that fled through Dracos mind. A wild look of horror when those words escaped from his father lips was the last thing he saw before his father were sent to Azakan.

Draco was left alone in the hallway with his father's pleads echoing in his head. He had to do it, break the smallest fraction of the only thing that survived the war for the man who were being dragged out of the property by men dressed in black robes and furrowed brows.

"Father," he yelled in vain and felt everything being stripped away from him. The shameful task of begging pounded hard inside his chest instead of real heartbeats with the screams of his fathers that were the screams of a man being punished for trying to run away from his crime. He _could_ fix it, the jail and the freedom that followed, but the sound of his mother, sobbing from somewhere above his head was the sound of a prideful family falling to the ground and shattering into thousand, thousand pieces and that Draco Malfoy could never glue back.

.

.

. . .

.


	7. Greed, Cornelius Fudge, May 3

Might be traces of personal hatred… might be.  
here it goes, the final sin.

* * *

Greed  
[desire and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.]  
.

"As the last of my kind, I address you," Fudge started and looked at the mass of journalists.

"As the last of what?" he heard a man yell out in the silence.

"As the last living former leader of this community I address you, with this news. The ministry as we've known it has fallen, the bodies have been counted and we will have a new leader soon. I shall not take any greater role in the events that follow, just as the people have asked from me," Fudge said and was interrupted by a unanimous cheer from the journalism mass and the mass.

He stood there, in the great hall of the memorial, and wondered if he really had been that bad of a leader. Had he not guided his community during a time of crises, war and hard choices? Hadn't he contributed to the rise of the mighty state that the wizarding society was today and wasn't it him that had brought the feeling of a unit to the Ministry of Magic?

"You cheer for the change I assume – ," Fudge continued, trying to look unaffected by the joy that the crowd showed when he told about his lack of interference.

"Yeah!" the crowd burst and many wands were raised to shoot rays of white, purple and light blue up towards the buildings ceiling.

"We owe you nothing," said an unidentified voice of the mass. "You have been nothing more than a bunch of corrupt, lying and deceiving wizards and with Merlin as my sorcerer the former rulers of the Wizarding state will fall."

He chose to glare at a young man in the mass who looked too jolly before he spoke. "It's sinful not to be grateful when the opportunity of life has been given to you after all casualties, death and tragedies that have been poisoning every vital part of life as we know it. Celebrate life because that is a gift given to you by those who guarded your interests," Fudge said and cleared his throat. He had done everything he could and the people were just ungrateful. "I believe that there is only one phrase you should use today and that phrase is thank you," he added and looked over the silent crowd who didn't utter a word.

He waited for _his_ cheers, his applause and for the sound of war survivors rejoicing and embracing in hope and gratitude. But nothing and he couldn't understand why. They were not the victims, Fudge thought, as he glanced over the podium where Harry Potter and his comrades sat. He saw the boy with the scar – it was his destiny – and there was the Granger girl and the Weasley who chose to follow him instead of running. The Longbottom boy was alive and healthy so surely he wasn't any problem and the others were merely participants in the war that they were doomed to. Bewildered he wondered where his throne and headlines was. Heroes of the war, they wrote, but they were nothing more than people who happened to had fate making them heroic.

"Be grateful," Fudge said and thought of all the deeds he had done for the good of the people. "To the ministry," he added for good measure and with that he concluded the press meeting and walked down the stairs that led him down from the podium. Cameras were snapping faster than he could hide and the endless questions where hauling over him but he wouldn't hear them out until that one voice echoed loudly.

"But you did nothing wrong, did you?" he heard that one voice that would haunt him to his grave ask, emphasizing the word 'you'. He stared at the source of his question and met her brown eyes in a second of disbelieve in the ordinarily of her. She was one of the people he had to serve and staring at her he realized that he was too proud to admit that he had done everything wrong. He believed Voldemort, there is only might and those who are too weak to seek it and it was war and he, well, he couldn't be one of the casualties.

"It is war," he heard himself say with a shaky voice. "We're casualties or survivors. I chose to survive like the rest of you."

"No, there's no excuse for you," she said and he saw the scared arm that she pushed herself forward with. The mass divided slowly when they saw that his attention was fixed on her. This was his doom, he knew, just as they all had one and she came to tell him the truth of the mass. "It _was_ war," she said and gave him a look that made him regret the emptiness in his previous words, knowing that he knew how to choose words without knowing the meaning. "But we are all victims, dead or alive," she ended.

Somewhere from a far ringed a muggle church bell twelve times and in the silence of the hall they all listened. A new day was closing up; the dust from the battle field was once again covering all the minds and although scars could be hidden sinners could not and he had been one. Fudge stood there and watched the crowd who were eager to see the new day where greed, hate and desire was not poisoning everything vital. It might be the last day for him as a leader but it was May, 4th that the bells ringed in; the first day for the wizarding community as a united people of freedom.

**_._**

**_._**

**_._**

**_A/N: And there goes seven sins, thanks for meeting me here at the end.  
Lumos Maximum_**


End file.
